


hotels across europe

by ismycapsloudenoughforyou



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen, M/M, bc i went on one of those and it was a neat time, but it's a school trip to europe, for WWII stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-19 00:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22668748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ismycapsloudenoughforyou/pseuds/ismycapsloudenoughforyou
Summary: A series of interconnected fluff shots of seventeen as high school students on a school trip across europeno real plot, just relationship / friendship building and general fuckery.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Hong Jisoo | Joshua, Everyone & Everyone, Jeon Wonwoo/Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi, Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8, Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Lee Seokmin | DK/Yoon Jeonghan, lee chan & poking fun at his friends
Comments: 14
Kudos: 53





	1. airports across america

**Author's Note:**

> hey. i went on one of these. then i was like, seventeen. on trip. and i came back and started writing.
> 
> this is unfinished. i have 8 chapters written. if people enjoy it, maybe i'll unstick myself and finish
> 
> anyway thanks for reading!

The asscrack of dawn was maybe not the time Jihoon expected to be waking up willingly over the summer. Then again, he’d signed up for this, so it was his fault that he was absolutely exhausted, since 4 AM was way too goddamn early to be awake, much less driving an hour to the airport.

But that was fine. He was just lucky he didn’t get the car with Seokmin in it. He was stupid energetic for the asscrack of dawn, and him and Joshua just seemed to be feeding off each others’ energy. Minghao’s car was quiet enough, and he had good music tastes for 4 AM, rather than some  _ others _ he could think of, who’d blast hype music at full volume.

He could  _ feel  _ the bass pumping every time their cars drew level.

But he somehow managed to go back to sleep.

The car lights snapped on, to the loud protests of everyone in the car. “Sorry,” Minghao said, not sounding all that sorry. “We’re here.”

He must’ve blacked out for a hot sec, or maybe he wasn’t as awake as he thought, because next thing he knew they were walking and the second car from their little car train was honking at them as it careened up the parking garage. Maybe not careened. But it looked like Jeonghan was playing around, since the car was zig zagging left and right as it made its way up the row towards them.

“We made a stop for coffee,” Joshua called out the open passenger side window, shaking his now empty cup as though they needed proof. Part of him was jealous, and the other part was planning to sleep on the plane. He didn’t need caffeine.

They kept going, leaving the other car to park. They had relatives coming in that would get the cars later, so they weren’t just sitting at the airport for two straight weeks. That would be quite the parking fee.

They still had an hour to kill before the flight once they got through the TSA check. It took some odd thirty minutes before the others showed. It was a school trip, so admittedly he wasn’t close to everyone on the trip, but he knew their names, at least, and they shared a couple mutual friends between each little subgroup. This would be fun.

_ Maybe fun was the wrong word, _ he thought, watching as Seungkwan argued (politely) with the TSA agent about bringing a jar of Nutella on the plane.  _ Interesting, more like _ .

Eventually he gave up and went to leave it in the car, making it through the security check just before their section boarded. A stroke of luck, one that very nearly caused their history teacher and chaperone an aneurysm. But he was a fairly chill teacher, so he wasn’t mad. Mostly relieved. It would kind of suck if they lost someone before they even left the county.

‘Interesting’ seemed to be the theme of the trip. Before they’d even made it onto their second connecting flight, they were sprawled across chairs in the New York airport at the near empty food court (stupid overpriced, as expected). He was pretty sure Jeonghan and Seungcheol were engaged in some kind of multiplayer on Jeonghan’s phone. And he was pretty sure Vernon was watching vine compilations, sitting on the floor with Seungkwan taking up two and a half chairs above him, looking over his shoulder. He couldn’t imagine that was comfortable. Meanwhile, Jun had unearthed a bag of Skittles from somewhere and he and Soonyoung were taking turns trying to catch them in their mouths. Apparently, Jun took the five second rule like a universal law, because he’d snatch the candies off the ground, blow on it a bit, and keep tossing it.

It was less a ‘Newton’s law of motion’ and more a ‘my mom said you can’t play in our yard anymore’ kind of rule, but Jihoon wasn’t about to make a big deal out of it. Jun was a hardy fellow, he’d be fine. An airport floor Skittle wasn’t going to kill him.

(he knocked on wood just for insurance’s sake)

The second connecting flight to Boston was longer, and he’d been seated on the aisle, so no more looking out the window. Unless he stared past Jun the whole time, and he wasn’t particularly inclined to do that. Not because Jun was an eyesore. Specifically because he  _ wasn’t _ . Although he was sure he wouldn’t admit it if asked. Not that he thought Jun was hot, because that was just god’s honest truth. Just that he was  _ uncomfortably _ hot.

But he was digging himself deeper into a hole that didn’t need to exist, so he turned up his volume and pretended he didn’t exist for a couple hours.

The Boston airport went about as well as the one in New York had, if even  _ more _ chaotic, since now there were fast food restaurants in the immediate area  _ other _ than a Mcdonald’s and a weirdly overpriced food court, and souvenir shops, and a spot with bubble tea, and all kinds of other places for the kids to poke their noses into. He ended up wandering around for a couple minutes, and then returning to the seats with some food to watch bags while they waited to board. This flight was going to be the long as fuck one, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

“Did you  _ see _ how fast the Sophomores ran for it?” Jun dropped dramatically into a chair near him, clutching a box of what appeared to be Raising Cane’s and a plastic shopping bag. “I swear, he finished talking and they’d already been gone for twenty seconds.”

“I didn’t even see where they went.” Jihoon shook his head.

“They booked it down the moving walkway. I’m pretty sure someone tripped halfway down, maybe that’s why you missed them.”

He was pretty sure he’d still have seen them, but it wasn’t worth arguing over.

Instead he nodded at the bag in Jun’s arms. “Whatcha got there?”

“Chicken.” Jun opened the box, producing a piece of bread, contrary to his words (Jihoon’s mouth watered just smelling it; Cane’s bread was  _ unfairly _ good and he wouldn’t stand for it).

“I meant in the bag.”

“Oh.” He rifled through it. “Nail polish.”

Jihoon’s eyebrows lifted. “Why?”

“Soonyoung liked the color, and I’m in the market for another coat and didn’t think to bring mine.” He lifted his hand, fingers spread to display the chipped polish on his nails.

Jihoon nodded. “I’ve never done that before.” He’d always thought he’d get laughed out of the country or something.

Jun lifted an eyebrow and the bag. “Do you want to?”

He kind of stared at it awhile, weighing the options, but shook his head. Jun looked kind of disappointed but didn’t push.

After another awkward second, Jihoon went back to his phone. The airport had internet, so he was back to watching meme compilations on YouTube. Better than playing Temple Run for fourteen hours straight. He’d do that on the plane.

“Hey Jihoon,” Jun called. He pulled out an earbud. Jun motioned towards the moving walkway with a chicken strip as the Sophomores tore back through, their movements just short of a flat out sprint.

“You think we should tell them to knock it off?” Jihoon asked, earbud dangling from his fingers.

Jun shrugged. “What’s the point?”

What’s the point indeed. They were gone almost a second later, although not without fooling around on the moving walkway for a second.

“Bet you Seungkwan Supermans his way down the walkway by the time we board,” Jihoon said, despite everything telling him gambling was a terrible terrible thing to do.

Jun paused, a chicken strip halfway to his mouth. “What are the stakes?”

“Well I’m not putting money on it.” He cast around for another option, before his eyes lighted upon the plastic bag sitting on top of Jun’s suitcase. He chewed his lip for a second. “How about, if I’m wrong, you can paint my nails?”

Jun lit up. “Agreed. And if you win, I’ll give you some of my bread.”

Jihoon blinked. “How’d you know I-”

“You’ve basically been drooling over it since I pulled it out.” Jun rolled his eyes playfully. “Give me a little credit here.”

He fought down a blush by sticking his hand out. “So, it’s a bet?” he asked.

Jun wiped his greasy fingers on a napkin and shook his hand. “It’s a bet.”

Jihoon didn’t win that bet, but he still got the bread. After Vernon went Supermanning down the moving sidewalk, Jun tore the last piece in half and gave him a piece. “ _ For being half right _ .”

He’d take it. A bread was a bread.

As he wheeled his carryon down the ramp to the plane, he watched Soonyoung and Seokmin swap tickets, with Seokmin skipping to catch up with Jeonghan. Was that even allowed? Maybe it was once you got past the ticket check. It probably was. He wasn’t about to try it though; the last thing he needed was TSA on his ass.

He settled himself into the window seat, pretending he wasn’t watching Jun as he came up the aisle in favor of getting his stuff together. He played with the in flight entertainment system on the back of the seat in front of him for a second, steadfastly ignoring the other as he deposited his carryon in the overhead rack.

“What kinds of movies do they have?” Jun asked eagerly, dropping into the seat next to him and beginning to tap on his own screen.

Jihoon snapped his attention to the screen, where he’d been scrolling admittedly without seeing. “They’ve got Black Panther.” His chest lightened immensely. He’d never flown before and was kind of expecting old man movies and stuff that had been out on DVD for six centuries.  _ Black Panther _ was still playing in theaters, and  _ oh boy _ was it his favorite film to date.

Jun giggled. “Is it a good movie?”

“ ‘Is it a good movie?’ ” Jihoon scoffed. “It’s  _ amazing _ . Have you seen it?”

“Not yet.”

Jihoon’s mouth dropped open, sending Jun into a bout of laughter. “We’re changing that,” he said, taking over Jun’s screen to locate the film.

The flight attendants came around with complementary earbuds, which they took and plugged a pair into the screen, sharing. The minute they were safely off the ground, they started the film.

And then when that was over, Jun requested  _ Enchanted _ . And then they watched another. And another.

He was pretty sure he’d nodded off in the middle of  _ High School Musical _ , because one minute it was Callbacks and the next it was ‘ _ We’re all in this together _ ’ and the lights on the plane were coming back up. Jun’s head rested on his, because-  _ oh my god he’d fallen asleep leaning on Jun. _ And he was pretty sure Jun had fallen asleep on him.  _ Oh god _ .

Jun woke up about the time the flight attendants came around with breakfast (some crackers and orange juice in one of those fruit cups, among other things).

“So,” he said, unwrapping his crackers, “do I make a good pillow?”

Jihoon really didn’t need this right now because he was opening the orange juice and if he wasn’t  _ super super incredibly careful  _ he was going to spill that shit all over himself and that was a hundred percent  _ not good _ , so he just answered with an offhanded, “Yeah, sure,” and sucked the juice out of the cup.

He couldn’t have missed Jun’s huge smile if he tried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wait, you mean you guys don't think your friends are hot? lmao can't relate


	2. when on a battleship (you better battle)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nails are painted. british hotels are fuckin weird. the kids explore a battleship. there are many mannequins. nothing good can come from mannequins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey it's been a week time for more lads
> 
> still have up to chapter 8 in the backlog. unfortunately haven't written more; got a lot of shit going on as i am in the Cooleg now and i'm running another seventeen au on tumblr simultaneously
> 
> anyway enjoy

Seungkwan was seriously regretting marathoning TV shows with Vernon the whole flight. He wasn’t sure how the other had managed to convince him that their overseas flight was a good time to watch the entirety of New Who, but they’d done it. Not watched the entirety of New Who, there were a couple episodes they didn’t have since the new season hadn’t finished, but he’d been convinced to do it.

They’d gone on a quick bus ride and seen a museum, but after Jihoon fell asleep sitting and Vernon almost fell off the bench, the tour guides agreed they should probably call it there. After a quick (and disappointing) dinner of fish and chips (they were flavorless? he’d heard the British were bland but this was excessive. the amount of salt he had to dump on the ‘chips’ just for them to have any semblance of taste was probably more than in the damn ocean), they headed back to the hotel. He kept nodding off on the bus ride back though, and maybe that was why he was more awake once they’d gotten there.

“Hey we’re gonna paint nails in Jihoon’s room if you guys want to join,” Jun called over the rumble of the tour group (not just them anymore; they’d met up with the groups from other places in the US in the airport).

“What’s the number?”

And so instead of sleeping, he found himself knocking on their door.

Soonyoung and Vernon were seated on one bed, with Jihoon cross legged on the other, his fingers splayed out on a strip of toilet paper.

“We haven’t figured out the power situation yet,” Jun said, which explained why they hadn’t turned the lights on. Seungkwan tried a switch experimentally, which did nothing.

“Yeah, you have to use a flashlight to piss,” Jeonghan’s voice added, making Seungkwan jump. Jihoon very obviously tried to hide a laugh.

“Wow, Jeonghan’s in here too?” Seungkwan asked to no one in particular.

Jeonghan popped up from where he’d been hidden behind the window side bed. “Well it’s my room too, so I would hope so.”

Seungkwan settled himself on the window bed, with Vernon and Soonyoung, now noticing a cot wedged between the bed and the wall. “Wow, fancy living,” he commented drily. 

“I know, right?” Vernon agreed cheerfully. “We got a cot and lights that don’t work.”

“How’d you convince Jeonghan to take the cot?”

“They didn’t convince me to do anything,” Jeonghan argued, a yawn marring his words. “I’m out of sight of whatever robber or pervert breaks down the door. They sure won’t be shooting me first.”

“Seungcheol and Seokmin are downstairs trying to get help with the lights.” Jun resettled himself on the other bed, taking a small bottle of polish off the side table. “We tried everything we could think of.”

“Is Joshua coming?” Jeonghan asked, nudging Seungkwan.

“Nah,” he answered distractedly, looking through the polish colors. “He laid down and absolutely crashed. Didn’t even change. Figured I’d leave him to it.”

“Chan’s in the shower, he might join us later,” Soonyoung added.

“Anybody heard from WonHaoGyu?” Jun asked.

Jihoon looked at him with dead eyes. “Please  _ god _ never say that again.”

“It doesn’t work as well as BooSeokSoon,” Soonyoung agreed cheerfully. “And anyway they’re probably down for the count. They were crashing pretty hard on the bus.”

“Here, I’ll text Wonwoo, he’s usually got his sound off.” Jun took out his phone. “They’re roomed together, right?”

“Yeah.” Jeonghan snickered a little. “Place your bets on who’s third wheeling.”

Soonyoung shoved him laughing off the cot as a loud knock sounded. Seungkwan hopped off the bed to answer it, since Jun was busy inspecting Jihoon’s nails.

Seungcheol moved into the room without pause as soon as the door opened. “It wasn’t a thermostat,” he groaned. “Jihoon where’s your key card?”

“Next to the TV stand.”

Seungcheol snatched it off the desk and stuck it in the card sized thing on the wall in the entryway. Immediately everyone reached for the nearest switch and clicked, suddenly flooding the room with light. Seungkwan hadn’t realized how dark it was getting.

“You have to stick your card in a thing to get power?” Soonyoung asked incredulously.

“That’s so weird.” Jeonghan wrinkled his nose.

“I mean, it makes sense,” Seokmin reasoned, hopping onto the bed with Jihoon and Jun. “It makes it so you can’t leave the lights on when you leave, since you take the keycard with you.”

Vernon picked up the remote from the bedspread, testing it. “Hey, we’ve got TV guys!” He pulled up the guide. “I’m gonna find a Harry Potter marathon.”

“We’re in  _ England _ and you’re going to watch Harry Potter?” Seungkwan asked.

“Can’t beat the classics.”

They ended up settling on what looked like a rerun of a Great British Bake-Off episode instead. It didn’t take very long for everyone to start crashing. Seokmin was out pretty quick, long before Chan got out of the shower and joined the party. They debated on if they should wake him to send him back up to his room or just let him stay in their room for the night. Eventually Jun went and got permission from the Powers That Be (the chaperones) to just let him sleep there. At the risk of also crashing, Seungkwan had to tap out right after his polish dried, although he noted with no small amount of pride that he’d managed to outlast Jeonghan, Seungcheol, and Soonyoung.

(Joshua hadn’t moved when he got back to the room. Seungkwan didn’t dare put the keycard in the lights; he was too afraid they would turn on and wake the other up)

Breakfast was an entertaining endeavor. There were only four of them who seemed rested in any capacity, the four who didn’t make it to the nail polish fest. It was pretty obvious who they were too, since everyone else sported bright colors on their fingers and theirs were just blank.

Also, they further solidified the hypothesis that the British hate flavor of any kind (what was  _ up  _ with that?).

That day was dedicated to sightseeing. They appreciated the juxtaposition of a Five Guys in an old stone building, saw a huge mural of Mr. Willy Shakes himself on the wall near where the Globe Theater used to be, and then got set loose on a battleship for a couple hours.

Now this would be fun.

“You think we’ll find any ghosts?” Seokmin asked, looking simultaneously enthralled with and terrified of the idea.

“It’s a  _ battleship _ , of course we will,” Soonyoung all but scoffed.

“Do mannequins count as ghosts?” Minghao asked drily, pointing through a door that hung perpetually open at the side of the hall. Cries of both disgust, fear, and excitement echoed down the hallway as they looked through to see a life sized wax figure of a chef, hitting directly in the center of the Uncanny Valley.

“Oh my god is that a  _ rat?! _ ” someone shrieked (at this point the voices ran together with the acoustics of the hallway, and he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the unsettling figure).

“Yeah,” Vernon said nonchalantly. At that, Seungkwan tore his eyes away, to see him looking altogether unbothered by the scene.

“You don’t think this is creepy at all?” he demanded.

Vernon shrugged, hands in his pockets. “I mean yeah, it’s freaky. But it’s funny to see you guys freaking out, so it kind of lessens the freakiness.”

“Hansol Vernon Chwe I swear to god, if they go all Doctor Who on my ass I’m blaming you.”

Vernon just laughed. Of course he would laugh. Vernon’s had years to become accustomed to the threat of mannequins just  _ developing guns _ in their hands. Seungkwan’s had maybe a day and a half (he’s not sure; days get hard to measure after a fourteen hour flight).

And the sight didn’t get any easier when they’d gone down several flights of stairs through the claustrophobic engine rooms and popped out into the bunk areas with literally tons of them. And a  _ soundtrack _ . Okay, so maybe it was just four or so, but the one in the hammock over the walkway was awful.

“Who thought these were a good idea?” Seokmin said mournfully, after they’d all flipped shit over thinking a woman was a mannequin until she started to crawl through the doorway (positioned two feet above the floor for maximum ‘the Grudge’ effect).

“The guys who made this into a museum I guess,” Minghao said cheerfully, watching to make sure Mingyu didn’t hit his head on the ceiling on his way up the stairs (again). “You gotta admit, it makes it a lot more interesting.”

“It makes me want to die a lot more, if that’s what you mean,” Mingyu complained. The mannequin in the hammock was a bit more personal for him since he was tall enough for the arm hanging off the side to brush the top of his head when he wasn’t paying attention (it scared the shit out of him, and then everyone else when he flipped, even Minghao, who was probably the most composed out of them when it came to spooky shit).

“We should find the navigation room,” Vernon suggested, following them up the steep staircase. “You think any of the guns still work? I could call Josh, he’s been in a Civil War reenactment, he might know how to use them.”

“Vernon the Civil War was like a hundred years before World War Two, and you know how crazy weaponry industries heated up,” Seungkwan said, narrowly avoiding rolling his eyes. He was anything but arriving unprepared for the trip (except for that thing at the airport; how was he supposed to know Nutella counted as a liquid?), and had done so much research on WW2 in preparation for the trip that Seokmin commented that he all but had facts spilling out of his ears. And he’d  _ gone over it all _ with Vernon on the flight between New York and Boston, at the other’s request.

Vernon shrugged. “Maybe it’s intuitive if you’ve operated something else?”

“I don’t think he actually operated a cannon in a mock battle recreation,” Mingyu said.

“Well you never know,” Minghao said cheerfully. “From here we could probably get a good shot on Big Ben.”

“Now you’re speaking my language.” Vernon pointed finger guns at him with a grin.

“Everyone’s speaking your language, we’re in England,” Soonyoung said.

The second Seungkwan stepped through the door into the navigation room, he practically sprinted for the stilted captain-looking chair. “Oh  _ yes _ !”

“Finally, a chair large enough you can actually see out the window when you’re driving!” Mingyu quipped, squeezing through the door after him.

“Finally, a chair long enough your feet won’t touch the ground,” Seungkwan mocked, knowing it was a weak insult but not finding it in him to care as he inspected the London skyline and the buildings lining the river (was it the Thames? he thought it was the Thames, but he couldn’t be sure).

“Hey, check it. The BBC building,” Vernon noted. “Captain Boo, ready the cannons.”

Seungkwan reached forward, and frowned. “I can’t reach any of the buttons.”

Mingyu burst out laughing. Seungkwan debated on getting down specifically to stomp on his toes. It would be worth it. Even if he broke them.  _ Especially _ if he broke them.

“Probably the Captain’s just supposed to boss everyone around,” Soonyoung suggested. “Like, there’s a navigator here, and the steering boy sits here, and the captain goes ‘you fucking idiot there’s an iceberg turn left’.”

For fun, they filmed a video for social media later, with Minghao filming (as an aspiring photographer he was best with angles and lighting, which translated onto videos as well). It wasn’t really scripted, they just talked in whatever random sea speak they knew.

“Steady on course at fifteen knots sir!” Seokmin called from where he was standing by a globe that actually looked like a compass and had no measure for speed whatsoever.

Vernon licked his finger and held it up as though to test the wind, even though they were in a completely enclosed space, aside from the door. “Wind at South-Southwest, 40 miles per hour.”

“Steering boy, you goddamn fool, there’s an iceberg in our sights! Adjust course, sixty degrees left!” Seungkwan barked exaggeratedly, his theatre training taking over. It was with satisfaction that he watched Mingyu salute sharply and proceed to poke a few switches and otherwise do absolutely nothing.

“Private Chwe, ready the cannons! We’ll take out their Elizabeth Tower!”

Vernon plastered on a confused expression and British accent. “But sir, we’re Englanders. And this is England. And we’d be firing on ourselves.”

“Aha, that’s where you’re wrong, Private Chwe. You’ve been on a German vessel this whole time!” He abruptly switched accents into a strong German one. “We’ll destroy England by morning!”

“You can’t do that!” Vernon said in exaggerated shock, with a gasp. “I’ll- I’ll radio London!”

He began to play with the console as though he was about to open communications, the switches glued into place and unmoving. Seungkwan cocked his finger like it was a gun and shouted, “ _ Bang _ !”

Vernon was a lot of things, and one of those was great with kids. He did not go light on the Death Drop. Seungkwan was kind of scared he’d concussed himself, but stayed in character. “With the Englander out of the way, there remain no obstacles to our goal. Not even the Americans are here to help their allies.”

And in the way that sometimes the stars align and everything goes right, Joshua climbed through the door at that exact moment. “Hey guys, what’s going on?”

They screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact the woman climbing through the port was a real thing; the football player senior i was wandering with flipped shit and made everyone else flip shit too. scariest moment of my whole life tbh
> 
> also that same guy hit his head on three separate staircases cause it's so narrow, poor lad


	3. let's take a lookie at some london landmarks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they go see a palace and a ferris wheel. starring joshua.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys been two weeks ngl i forgot i existed so yeehaw but here you go!

So it was kind of weird to walk in on the Sophomores and Juniors and immediately have them scream, but once he got the context it was a little less crazy. And the video was pretty funny.

After the battleship time, they bussed back over to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard and other things, like a rumor that a member of the royal family would be leaving for some kind of lunch or negotiation or something. Truthfully Joshua had been kind of distracted by Seungcheol making faces and hadn’t been paying that much attention to the tour guide.

For fear of getting lost in the throngs of people collecting to watch, he’d snagged Seungcheol’s hand. He also hadn’t missed the blush on the other boy’s cheeks, the heat rising into his own cheeks, and Jeonghan’s wiggling eyebrows, visible through the crowd for perhaps half a second at most before a man in a Hawaiian shirt and khakis cut through. He squinted over the crowd to find their guide, flailing a large flag on a pole that looked like the French flag (but with all the waving he had no real idea). He just tried not to get lost, and to ignore Jeonghan and Seokmin dramatically reenacting the Titanic out of the corner of his eye.

“Englanders don’t play when it comes to seeing the royal family huh?” Seungcheol huffed, winded as they tried to keep up with the fast pace.

“I think these are mostly tourists.” Joshua ducked to avoid getting clotheslined by someone expressively throwing their arm out.

“Same difference.”

They both knew Seungcheol didn’t actually mean that so he didn’t bother correcting it.

“You think we’ll actually see the royal family?” Seungcheol asked as they weaved around another family.

“Nah. We might see their car, if we’re lucky.”

They blew past Mingyu posing on a bridge, Minghao crouched in front of him. They were probably getting the golden Victoria fountain (statue?) in the background. Joshua had half a mind to teasingly tell them to try not to get lost, but the crowd closed in before he could.

The guide finally paused on the right side of the palace. “Okay team,” he said, without waiting for stragglers (Joshua would just fill their slow ones in later, it would be okay). “We don’t know what side they’re going to come out on so we’re going to have to run for it whenever we see them start to leave.”

That was met with some nervous laughter and a couple grins. The guide evidently didn’t care, as his attention was fixed back on the police officers down below, moving around on little motorcycles.

“You got any running left in you?” Seungcheol asked, seeming slightly winded.

“Maybe a little,” he said truthfully.

The stragglers finally fought their way over. “Sorry, got distracted, the pond is really pretty,” Seokmin gasped.

“Pretty enough to start singing  _ The Little Mermaid _ , apparently,” Jeonghan teased, lightly shouldering the other. “It’s not even the ocean.”

“We did it for Show Choir last semester, and you know those birds were just begging for a serenade!” Seokmin defended.

Minghao rolled his eyes into the back of his head. “This is why people hate tourists.”

“So what’s your excuse then?” Jeonghan challenged lazily.

“Got a perfect photo op,” he answered, pulling his camera out and flipping through the photos to show the other. “Upload these to my laptop, slap a filter on them, and they’ll look great in my portfolio.”

“Glad to see someone’s planning for their future.” Seungcheol nodded approvingly, like a dad.

“Why’s it the sophomore though?” Joshua had to ask. Even he wasn’t really sure, and he was headed for college in the fall.

“Never too early to start,” Minghao said matter of factly, putting the camera away.

The wait for the royal family was kind of disappointing. Joshua didn’t actually know what happened, whether they just ran out of time to wait or if it wasn’t actually the royal family who was leaving, but either way they didn’t actually see any action on the road besides a bunch of horses and the little police on their motorcycles. And then they were trailing the maybe-French flag at something just short of a dead sprint to see the changing of the guard. Which was cool. The band was pretty neat.

And then it was back on the bus.

Well, it was supposed to be. The bus was apparently having trouble getting to them, so they had to walk in some disorganized herd to a square nearby and settled around some fountain. Nearby, some guy with a guitar and a microphone was playing Shawn Mendes and Ed Sheeran. He didn’t realize he was fingering the chords in time until he glanced up and saw Seungcheol grinning at him real wide.

The last stop before the hotel was the London Eye, the giant ferris wheel on the Thames. Well, they didn’t have to. If they wanted, they could also wander the streets of London and go souvenir shopping or whatever. He chose to go on the Eye. The younger kids needed an eighteen year old to go on it anyway.

“Is eighteen the age of adulthood here?” Joshua asked as they waited in line.

“Yeah. I looked it up.” Jun’s eyes shone with some kind of mischief. “Eighteen you become a legal adult,  _ and _ you can drink.”

Joshua snorted. “Of course you’d have looked it up.” Jun was going to turn eighteen while they were on the trip. Joshua glanced over at the counter, where Seungcheol waited with his assigned group of under-eighteens to buy tickets. “I bet you Seungcheol did too.”

“He would.”

“But not for your reasoning.”

It was sunset by the time they actually got on the Eye. Seungkwan and Vernon had been discussing some ‘Nesting Conscious’ and the best way to defeat it without anti plastic for at least ten minutes. They weren’t debating though, which was good. Seungkwan was on the debate team and Vernon did slam poetry, so they could go for a long time. Sometimes it was fun to see, but Joshua had a sneaking suspicion that the other tourists and the Brits didn’t want to have to listen to a knock down drag out debate about Doctor Who.

Or maybe they would, he’d heard about someone putting notes in people’s mailboxes that Capaldi was the new Doctor so what did he know?

They got split in half between two ferris wheel cars, which was kind of disappointing, but they’d also been expecting it so it was whatever. The ferris wheel never stopped turning as they hopped into the car, the door closing behind them.

He seated himself near the window facing the river, drinking in the view.

“You know I’ll never get over the fact that Big Ben’s getting renovations the exact week we happen to be in town,” Seungcheol commented, sitting next to him. Joshua glanced over to the tower in question, its face obscured by scaffolding.

“Yeah, that’s kind of a bummer.”

“Big Ben is the bell!” Seungkwan called from the other side.

Seungcheol made a face. “I don’t need to take this, he’s a  _ sophomore _ ,” he mumbled.

“He’s also right.” Joshua shrugged, grinning.

Seungcheol groaned, leaning on him dramatically. “Oh god, don’t take his side!”

He just smirked, shifting to a more comfortable position. He had no doubt Jeonghan would’ve immediately plopped down and leaned against him if he could, but they’d gotten on the car behind them so he got to keep the rest of his shoulder real estate for the moment.

“That building looks like a candy cane.” Seungcheol pointed.

“Which one?”

“Just to the right of Big Benny,” he directed. “There’s a lot of candy cane buildings, what’s the deal with that?”

“Maybe the Brits love the color combo. Or the candy.”

Seungcheol shrugged.

Honestly, Joshua was pretty sure Seungcheol was on the verge of falling asleep like three times. Which made sense, really, the wheel was spinning slow and consistent and they really hadn’t gotten that many chances to sit down at any point. It was pretty disappointing when the revolution of the wheel finally brought them back down to the bottom.

And then it was back on the bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter title may suck now but i swear to you it was worse. this is version 2.0


	4. candy, chaos, and karaoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> jeonghan stars in this bit, as the group begins their (2 chapter) journey across the english channel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello. this chapter is sorta short. it serves mostly as a way for me to mitigate my embarrassment. more on that later.
> 
> because the final author's note got long, i'll say it here:
> 
>  **wash your hands. twenty seconds**. don't buy out the toilet paper for chrissake you're better than that. **i love you. stay safe and thanks for reading**

The next day found them on a bus, and then a ferry across the English Channel. That was absolutely fine with Jeonghan. He’d like to consider himself to be fairly athletic, but two days spent walking on very little sleep were _really_ not doing it for him. To be honest, he knocked right out on the bus.

They had some time to blow before the ferry arrived, so they were given semi free reign in the shopping center nearby, with a time to come back and a place to meet. And, perhaps to someone’s surprise but certainly not his, Seokmin made an immediate beeline for the pastry shop some ten feet up the way. Honestly? He was with him on that one.

“Everything looks so good,” Seokmin whined, hands clutching the last of his British Pounds as he tried to come to a decision. They had to spend all their paper money before they left, since the pounds wouldn’t work anywhere else.

Jeonghan shrugged, taking another bite of the croissant he’d bought (they apparently had French style pastries there, which made sense, considering the locations were pretty closely linked). “Just pick a couple things. I’ll split my stuff with you.”

They probably bought one of every item in the store between them, and then proceeded to take their remaining pounds and head to the candy store on the corner. Even after buying a ton of stuff from there, they still hadn’t spent all their money, but at least they had a lot less than before.

“I’m still so thrown by them not having sales tax,” Seokmin said around the Sherbert Lemon he was sucking on.

“Well they do have sales tax, they just include it in the price tag,” Jeonghan amended.

“It’s just weird to actually pay for just what’s on the tag though.” He bit down and the hard candy broke with an audible crunch. “Like I actually know what my total’s going to be at the register without having to carry an extra dollar in case it’s a little more than I predicted.”

“I gotta say though, I don’t miss all the ninety nines.” Jeonghan rooted through the spoils, picking out the brightly wrapped bag of candies labelled _Roses_. The nondescript wrappers gave no hints as to what was inside and he was pretty excited to try his luck.

Seungkwan and Vernon dropped to the ground near them, also holding bags from the pastry store.

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t that bad,” Seungkwan argued, with a tone like he’d been saying it for awhile.

“Yeah, but it’s just not quite authentic,” Vernon said casually. “I didn’t come this far to just settle for a beret from _England_. We’re literally gonna be in France tonight.”

Seungkwan seemed absolutely done with that. Jeonghan kinda agreed with that logic though.

“Wait, you think they have any like newspaper boy caps?” Seokmin asked eagerly. “In France?”

“What, so you can get a hat like the one you wore for _Newsies_?” Jeonghan checked. Seokmin nodded. “Didn’t that show take place in New York City?”

“Well yeah, but it’s not like that’s the only place you can get a newsie cap,” Seokmin reasoned. “I mean, Costumes somehow got a set of them for the cast, and we don’t live in New York.”

Jeonghan shrugged. “I’m just saying, it’s not going to be authentic.”

“No, but it’ll have twice the sentimental value.” Seokmin beamed. And Jeonghan. . . couldn’t argue with him on that point.

After a load of general chaos, in which Soonyoung bought a large pizza at the stand down the way and proceeded to be unable to finish it before getting back on the bus and having to share it with everyone else there in some kind of pizza feeding frenzy as they scarfed it down like their lives depended on it, they made it on the ferry. Next stop: France.

“You gonna share your plunder?” Jun asked, leaning over the table from where he was sitting on a chair the wrong way round.

“Depends,” Jeonghan said flippantly. “You gonna stop talking like a pirate?”

Jun contorted his face playfully into a snarl. “Arrr, nevar!”

“Then no.” He got halfway through turning around, before reconsidering. “Okay you can have a couple pieces of candy and maybe a bite of a pastry. For the nail polish.”

Jun beamed and scooped up a couple of the chocolates strewn about the table, turning back around.

“Aye, you let them take off with our booty!” Seokmin said in a heavy pirate accent.

“Oh god, is it contagious?” Jeonghan joked, putting his hand on the younger’s forehead. “Oh god Seokmin you’re burning up! Don’t worry, I can fix this!” He snatched a cold water bottle off the floor, dripping with condensation, and pressed it against the other’s forehead. Seokmin fought him off, laughing.

“You guys are disgusting, you’re making the rest of us look bad,” Mingyu teased.

Jeonghan raised an eyebrow. “You wanna see disgusting? They’ve got a karaoke machine and you know we sing a mean duet, don’t challenge us.” He glanced to one side to check with Seokmin. Seeing him looking thrilled spurred him on.

They were in Show Choir and they were in Europe. There was literally no reason not to karaoke (after all, they weren’t doing anything else).

In hindsight, maybe they should’ve chosen something a little more silly. Later Seungkwan went up and belted Bohemian Rhapsody to the delight of like, everyone, and Jun dragged Jihoon up for Love Shack (who knew Jihoon could hit those notes?). Their first idea was something from Newsies, but obviously the ferry karaoke setup didn’t have that, so they went for something else they knew was popular: _Havana_.

The elementary aged kids seated cross legged in front like it was story time stopped them from getting too raunchy with the dancing, but they still had fun with it. Jeonghan made sure to make eye contact with Mingyu as many times as possible, just to remind him the reason this was happening. He hadn’t really expected much, but it was pretty rewarding to see his face so red when they finally sat back down.

He hadn’t expected much from the performance either, because even though they’d sung Havana for show choir they’d both done the male half of the pair choreography and admittedly Seokmin was probably making most of it up for the other half of the choreo, since he was singing Camilla’s part, but the roaring applause they got at the end really showed they apparently didn’t look completely clueless. There were some weird looks too, probably stemming from how tryhard they probably looked, compared to the kids who’d sang Ed Sheeran’s Castle on the Hill without moving the whole time.

Jeonghan dropped back into his seat with a smirk. “Your move, Gyu.”

Predictably, Mingyu didn’t even acknowledge it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok i sang karaoke on the ferry. yes, really. me. a friend of mine said i should, said they'd do it with me, and i was feeling insane or tired or _something_ and i did it. the first song i named that they had on their machine that we both knew was the greatest by sia, but it had a rap section. i had never heard the rap section. my friend had never heard the rap section. neither of us knew it had a rap section until we were already onstage, and the rap section was going
> 
> i still cringe over it, sometimes, when i'm trying to sleep
> 
> (i contemplated performing 'river' bc i knew the rap part and i wanted to regain my cred, but there were lil ones and i didn't want to try my luck again like. nah. but while we were up there one of my friends started talking to this english woman who was going to france for her 20-something birthday and liked Twice, so. hi english woman whose name i have forgotten)
> 
> also there was a french guy who went up there and sang single ladies tho except he didn't know any of the lyrics so he just sang 'whoa-oh-oh' and that was it. he is a legend and tbh i still think about it.


	5. yeehaw we're sailboys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> wonwoo and soonyoung have a chat. they also join mingyu and minghao in becoming one with the english channel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi. this one's short. sorry about that, i wasn't paying attention to the length when i sectioned it off originally and. well. it's too late now.
> 
> hope the pandemic has been treating you well. i love you.

Everyone told him Europe was going to be cold. Freezing.  _ But it’s June, _ he said,  _ how does that even work? _

They’d given him some answer with the ocean and the climate that he couldn’t remember well enough to rattle off. Soonyoung just knew that out on the back deck of the ferry, it was  _ cold _ . But he wasn’t going in until England faded into the distance.

Which he was starting to realize was going to be pretty miserable because they’d barely started and he was already freezing.

“Here.” Wonwoo slapped a sweatshirt into his chest.

“Thank you!” He shrugged it on eagerly, and then trailed after the other boy as he handed jackets to the others who’d forgotten them. 

“I feel like a pack mule,” Wonwoo complained lightly, tossing Mingyu’s sweatshirt directly into his face.

“You are, and we’re very thankful,” Soonyoung teased.

Wonwoo rolled his eyes and smacked him with his oversized sleeve. Soonyoung gasped and held his arm like he’d been wounded, which just made Wonwoo roll his eyes harder.

“Dude, look at that bird!” he screeched seconds later, forgoing the act entirely.

“Are you surprised?” Wonwoo raised an eyebrow.

“I mean a little look how close he is!” Soonyoung hurtled over to the railing. “And big!”

“We’re on a boat, there’s obviously going to be seagulls.”

“Literally, don’t sass me or I’ll flip you over the side,” he threatened, but he hadn’t bothered with inflection so it came over a little flat (but he didn’t care because  _ the seagull was coming! _ )

“We’re really booking,” Minghao commented, leaning on the side rail with an eye towards the water swirling in their wake.

“Wait ready I’m going to become one with the English Channel.” Mingyu leaned forward.

“Don’t you dare jump over the side,” Wonwoo said.

Mingyu spat dramatically into the wind, the wind whipping the tiny glob dangerously close to Minghao’s face before it plunged down and out of sight. “One with the English Channel.”

“You almost spat in my face,” Minghao deadpanned.

“I’m one with the English Channel,” he insisted.

Soonyoung spat into the wind. “Me too!” He nudged Wonwoo in the side. “Now you. Be one with the sea.”

Wonwoo sighed. “You guys are idiots,” he said, and then did it, with Minghao (perhaps feeling the peer pressure) following suit a few seconds later.

“Now we’re connected.” Soonyoung nodded decisively. “For life.”

“Oh yay,” Wonwoo deadpanned.

“And then when this ferry inevitably pulls a Titanic we’ll be saved by the power of spitting into the sea,” Mingyu agreed.

“Exactly.”

Minghao rolled his eyes with a fond look. “Well okay, I’m gonna go take a picture of the French flag. You have fun spitting in the ocean.”

“You did it too!” Mingyu argued, trailing after him, their voices disappearing under the roar of the engines.

“There’s a boat following us,” Wonwoo noted.

“Obviously they’re towing the iceberg that will be our inevitable demise,” Soonyoung said.

“It’s a tiny speed boat, it’s not plotting our doom.”

“I don’t know, I feel like supervillains could use speed boats to take out giant ferries.”

“You know of any real life supervillains?” Wonwoo rested his arms on the railing.

“Well no,” Soonyoung admitted. “But everyone needs an origin story.”

“So you’re saying we’re going to become supervillains? And the ferry sinking is our origin story?”

“That would be pretty sick.” Soonyoung grinned.

“But then how’s the speedboat going to sink the ferry?”

Soonyoung considered. “Okay, so you know how in World War Two the Japanese pilots crashed onto the aircraft carriers? Like that. He’s gonna catch up and slam into the back and we’re gonna go down like it’s Spiderman Homecoming.”

“What kind of supervillain are we gonna be?”

“Nautical themed,” Soonyoung decided. “Like Pirates of the Caribbean.”

“We gonna have a steampunk boat or something?”

“Yeah, and it’s gonna have these balloons in the side so we can ascend to the sky à la Bioshock Infinite. Or Up, or something.”

“Captain presses a button and they inflate with helium?”

“Yeah. Or something like the Helicarrier from the Avengers, except our ship’ll look way cooler.”

“That’s something the MCU could use, a sky battle between an aircraft carrier and a stylized steampunk ship.” Wonwoo grinned. “What’s our name then?”

Soonyoung took a minute to think. “Sailboys?”

Wonwoo burst out laughing. “ _ What? _ ”

Soonyoung flushed but stuck to his guns. “Well you know, I was thinking all the pirate names are overrated, and then I was like well, the pirates of the West are them bandits and the cops are the cowboys, and boats have sails and sailboy sounds like of like sailboat, so it would be appropriate?”

“But we’re villains.”

“It’ll throw them off,” Soonyoung said. “We say, hello we’re the sailboys, and then they laugh like you did, and then we explain it and they’re like ah yes the sailboys and then we rob them of everything they have, simple as that. Yeehaw.”

Wonwoo sputtered with laughter. “Is that our catchphrase? Yeehaw?”

“Yeah. Just, yeehaw, we’re sailboys, put the money in the hold. Plain and simple.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo sad, settling down. “To recap, yeehaw sailboys. In our steampunk ship, air battling the Helicarrier.”

“You bet.”

Wonwoo grinned. “Iron man ain’t got shit on us. Yeehaw.”

Soonyoung beamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Also, the speedboat is gone.”
> 
> “Shit, there goes our origin story.”


	6. the french really know how to hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> seventeen arrives at the french hotel. there is general fuckery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha has it been a month uhh whoops
> 
> thanks for the kudos?? like this one has the most and boyo does validation feel good
> 
> sorry for dropping off the face of the earth. it really do be like that sometimes

Chan was tired.

Like,  _ really _ tired. Like beyond tired. Really, he just wanted to get into the hotel and sleep. Unfortunately, the whole ferry ride and getting through the security check and the bus ride meant they got there after the hotel closed for the night. He wasn’t actually sure of the full details, but he was kind of sure their British guide was going to break into the hotel office to get the room keys.

Which you’d  _ think _ would be a great time to nap, but Jun and Soonyoung were talking loudly in something like a thick Russian accent and trying to indoctrinate people into a cult.

“Channie.” Jun poked his arm. “Channie, you want to be slavciple?”

“A what.”

“Slavciple. Is like disciple, but for slav.”

He pronounced slavciple like the second ‘i’ sound in icicle, but whatever. “No thanks.”

“But we already got Jihoonie.” Jun tugged on the arm of the boy in question, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

“How’d you manage that?”

“He’s very persuasive,” Jihoon said dryly, noticeably not sporting the accent.

Jeonghan turned ahead of them to sit the wrong way in his seat. “How’d you go from pirate to slav?”

“We are still pirate!” Soonyoung insisted.

“Yes, just also slav.” Jun agreed.

Seungkwan scoffed and made some comment under his breath, something about a pan-slavic movement and world war one, Chan wasn’t paying attention.

“Why slavciple?” Seokmin popped over the seat back next to Jeonghan, leaning on it.

“Because we are slav god,” Jun said proudly. “You want to be slav priest?”

Seokmin’s face lit up. “ _ Yes! _ ”

“Seokmin is slav priest.” Soonyoung declared.

“Channie can be slav secretary,” Jun said.

“You mean slavretary.”

“Oh yes, slavretary.”

He really should’ve expected this. “Even if I wanted to join, I’m not gonna be a slavretary.”

“Then what do you suggest slavretary?”

“If I had to pick? Slavciple.”

“Then Chan is slavciple. Slavciples answer to slav high priest, who is slav high priest?”

A hand raised from a few seats ahead and Minghao’s unmistakable voice called, “Dibs.”

“Minghao is slav high priest,” Jun declared, grinning.

“Dude what the fuck I thought you were asleep,” Mingyu sounded confused.

“I was, but they are very loud.” And oh great, he was doing the voice too. Not that it didn’t sound like fun, he was just too tired for that right now. And it wasn’t like his accents were all that good on a good day.

Luckily, the chaperone came back with the room assignments, and he wasn’t assigned to a room with any of the slavs. Unluckily, they were assigned to a room together. Most likely they’d feed off each other and never stop. If they didn’t come to breakfast speaking like that he’d be shocked.

The guide handed out the room keys and they finally headed inside.

Whatever he was expecting, he was wrong. Every time. He’d been expecting something like their hotel in England, which had been exactly like home. And then he got through the gate and saw this courtyard surrounded by buildings like a motel or something, so he’d rearranged his mental picture slightly, but still expected the standard one room and a bathroom.

Boy was he in for it.

“Who’s got the key?”

“I do.” Seungcheol made his way through the group of four standing in front of the door. Their room was on the second floor, and surprisingly the key was like, an actual key, not just a plastic card, which was weird and maybe should’ve tipped him off to what awaited them inside, but no. After a minute of struggling with the lock, they pushed the door open.

“ _ Dude. _ ” Chan’s jaw dropped.

“This isn’t a hotel, it’s a goddamn apartment,” Mingyu said incredulously.

“There’s like six rooms, what the hell?” Seokmin moved farther in, spinning in a slow circle in the middle.

“Guys there’s a bunk bed.” Seungcheol pushed open a door on the right side. Chan closed the door and immediately got distracted by the full kitchen they had against the wall, because why in the  _ actual hell _ did they have an  _ oven _ in their  _ hotel room _ .

“We have a fucking  _ balcony _ ?” Mingyu pulled the curtains aside, exiting without another thought.

“The French really know how to live.” Seungcheol whistled as Seokmin threw open yet another door with a large bed, two large closets, and two lamps, as if they needed more to prove this was basically an apartment.

Chan opened the final door, locating the bathroom. “Dibs on first shower,” he claimed immediately.

“Dibs on the big bed,” Seungcheol mumbled, shoving his rolling suitcase into the room.

“Yo, we’re right across from the others!” Mingyu called back inside.

“Which others?” Chan slung his suitcase onto the floor and flung it open to collect his toiletries.

“Umm,” he hummed, then vanished like he was going to ask. “Jeonghan, Jun, Wonwoo, and Vernon.”

“Ten bucks says Seungkwan’s going to be in their room most of the time,” Seokmin sang, looking through the cupboards.

“How do you figure?” Chan tossed his towel over his arm, standing again.

“Easy, he got assigned to room with the George Washington kids.” Seokmin produced a pan from the cupboard and grinned. “And Vernon’s across the way.”

Chan didn’t even have to consider it. “Yeah, you’re right.” Seungkwan and Vernon were easily the closest pair among them, and the kids from the George Washington group were not looking so good where ‘being decent people’ was concerned. If he got assigned to room with them, he’d run for it too.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time for him to get done in the shower. Seokmin was gone, probably over with Jeonghan. Mingyu was also gone, but he had less of an idea of where he’d be. The deep breathing from the room with the bed made him suspect Seungcheol had fallen asleep. He tried to be quiet putting his things away.

Although he couldn’t help it if he jumped at something hitting the balcony door.

Scrambling to collect the bottles he’d accidentally knocked onto the ground, he cast a wary look at the doors. They were off the ground, so it would be hard to hit them from below, unless there was someone on the hill outside who was throwing things? Or-

Or the guys in the next room were.

He pushed the balcony door open (although the handle threw him for a second, he’d thought it was a pull door. It was not). Jeonghan leaned over the balcony rail across the way, a shit eating grin on his face and a handful of brightly wrapped candies on the table next to him. Glancing down, that was indeed what hit the door.

“Why are you wasting candy?”

“I had to get your attention somehow.”

“You’re literally ten steps away from my door,” Chan pointed out. “Also, you have a phone.”

“I’ve got limited texting in Europe, and I’m saving them for an emergency.” Jeonghan pitched another candy at him, which he managed to catch. Maybe he should try out for the baseball team. “Come over, we didn’t finish painting your nails.”

“Fine.” As much as he wanted to sleep, he also didn’t really want to wander around Europe with one hand painted entirely and the other only having the pinky and ring finger done. He kept feeling off balance when he saw it. They’d meant to finish it the night before but he’d crashed almost immediately upon getting out of the shower.

And besides, he thought as he knocked on the door, despite going in mental circles to justify it any other way, plain and simply he enjoyed the chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the slav thing was a real thing. that really happened. on my trip. except they didn't drop it. literally they did that all the way through germany. we were in the AIRPORT on our way home and they had been talking in their 'slav' accent so long they actually couldn't stop. one of them had a speech tournament the next day and he couldn't stop speaking slav. they threw on a really exaggerated hick accent so they'd stop. WE MET AN ACTUAL SLAV IN THE HOTEL IN MUNICH AND THEY COULD NOT STOP DOING THE ACCENT.
> 
> (he was cool; he plays the cello in this big travelling orchestra & he talked to us about his parents' stories from ww2 bc we told him we were on a ww2 trip; i think he was polish but it's been about two years so i don't remember anymore. he was great tho)
> 
> i guess they were tired/bored on the bus? i'd been listening to music and i took my earbuds out and these seniors are in the back just going back and forth like, 'what does slavic fish say? slub slub' 'what does slav sheep say? slaa slaa' 'what does slav cow say? sloo sloo'. they got me into it a little (i was a slavciple)
> 
> (later that summer my grandmother was cheating at old maid while we were waiting for a local outdoor play production to start and i slipped into slav without realizing while i was pointing it out and my sister was like OH GOD YOU WENT SLAV and i have never been the same)


	7. hitler's bunkers make a great playground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the group has some fun in normandy, and i project my weird philosophizing onto mingyu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh this marks the end of my backlog; i thought i had another chapter but it was wayyyy too short to be a chapter so i combined it with the next one
> 
> and i don't remember what happened in paris
> 
> anyway enjoy. i'll try to get back in the writing groove and get something up

They had one day to spend tearing up the town in Normandy and Minghao was determined not to waste it. For one, because France was pretty and perfect for a photo op or seven, and for another he was just plain interested. It was one thing to hear about everything from a history textbook but it was very much another to be standing in the same spot.

(Mingyu would have teased him about sounding like Wonwoo or their History teacher if Minghao had said that aloud. He probably wasn’t wrong)

They piled out of the bus at Omaha Beach itself, the one all the textbooks harped on about. To be honest, it was. . . a little underwhelming, actually. But at least now he had a visual on the facts he was going to recite onto an exam paper later, so hey, he was getting something out of it.

“Now I get why it was so awful,” Mingyu said as they descended the stairs in the cliffside to stand on the beach itself. “Imagine trying to climb this thing while getting shot at from like eight sides.”

“Yeah, no wonder.” His feet were already sinking into the sand. He couldn’t imagine having to do it with pounds and pounds of equipment strapped to his back (although, if he had his schoolbag he’d probably get the idea).

Some people had taken their shoes off and were wading into the surf. Down the beach, slowly disappearing in the fog that hung low over the beach, someone was walking their dog.

“You think the people who died here would have preferred a somber dying ground, or something more like a public beach?” Mingyu asked as they wandered along the waterline.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, the theory goes that dead people haunt their place of death, right? So if you died here in a war, would you prefer to eternally see people being somber and respectful or like, some everyday thing like, I don’t know, a kid building a sand castle?”

Minghao considered that. “Well from what I know, everybody got disillusioned with war in World War One,” he said. “They probably weren’t thrilled about everything going down here. Probably wanted to go home. I guess the respect would be great for the first few decades but they might get tired of respect cancelling everything else out.”

“That was kind of my thought,” Mingyu admitted. “But there’s also a theory that ghosts are forever trapped in the moment of their death, so maybe it would piss them off if it wasn’t a place of respect.”

“I mean, I don’t get any vibes like that.”

“Maybe we play it safe and do something for both theories.”

They didn’t have any buckets so they just piled up some sand with their hands and dug a little moat. Mingyu found a stick on the shore to plant as the flag and Minghao drew a little American flag in their lump of a main building. Logically, it would be gone in less than an hour, but it seemed to make Mingyu a little less restless. Minghao took a picture of it, allowing the American flag to fill up the foreground on one side with the foggy beach receding behind it.

Then they got back on the bus. Next stop: the cemetery for the Americans who died in the war. Not all of them died on D-Day. Just most of them.

The morning sun still had yet to burn the fog away. At the encouraging of their history teacher, who’d been on the trip before, they split up to walk the graveyard. It was eerie, really, with the quiet and the fog. Just to one side, through the treeline, was the beach some of these men had fought and died on. The fog was so heavy you could hardly see it.

(he read their names and position even if he really didn’t know what it meant; he forced himself to calculate the ages and know them for who they were: kids on a beach and not the men he’d thought before. by the time they got back to the bus he’d read so many more teens than adults)

They made a stop that wasn’t on the itinerary, a special stop, according to their British guide. The bus pulled up to the gate of a German military cemetery.

It felt much smaller, although that could have been due to the trees planted between and in the middle of the rows. Instead of the rows and rows of white crosses, with an occasional star of david, the headstones were low to the ground, shaped like plus signs with two or four names on them. Some of these soldiers were even younger. He counted a fourteen year old on one of them, and it hurt.

They spent much less time at this cemetery than the other, piling back on the bus pretty quickly. He forced himself not to throw hands when one of the chaperones for the other schools on the trip makes a crack about ‘good Germans’ not existing. With great effort. He didn’t want to start a fight if they still had a week left with these people but  _ oh boy _ there was a line.

As a final stop for the day, they headed up to Pointe-Du-Hoc. The bus ride took an extremely long time (and at one point had the driver backing up through the narrow roads for several miles, which  _ how _ ), but they made it.

“This damn fog,” Seungkwan griped to nobody as they made for the point at top speed. “I read on a clear day you can see miles down the beach.”

“Really makes for a solid aesthetic though,” Minghao said, unbothered.

“It kind of feels fitting,” Mingyu agreed, staying near the middle of the path and trying to avoid taking some of the more risky paths the others were (like climbing across the German fortifications still half buried in the ground).

“You think they’ve got any landmines in the ground here?” Seungkwan sounded worried about the possibility.

“I’d be less worried about mines and more about shells that never went off,” Joshua said. “But let’s be real, if they were going to go off they would have already with the amount of tourists that come climbing through here.”

“What about here, you think the ghosts here would prefer a somber military site or a playground?” Mingyu asked.

“Playground, probably, I mean that’s kind of what it is.” Vernon gestured at the other groups around them, parents with their little children standing up at the point itself.

“It would make a great playground. Little me would have loved this.” Jeonghan ran past them and down the steep side of one of the bomb craters, nearly pitching flat of his face and grinning up at them. “Older me still loves it.”

They got a few pictures of the peak and went exploring.

“Y’all I got something!” Jun shouted, drawing them all in.

“Jun literally we’re not from the South, why,” Jihoon deadpanned.

“What’d you get?”

“There’s a bunker or something.” He pointed down at it, his voice getting dramatic. “Could be dangerous.”

Seokmin adjusted an imaginary cap. “Danger is my middle name,” he said.

“Great,” Vernon said, “you can go first.”

“Nope!" Seokmin immediately took a step back. "Danger might be my middle name but mud’s the redheaded stepchild’s, I’m not touching that.”

“I vote Seungcheol goes in, he already got his feet wet,” Minghao suggested.

“Thanks guys, when a vengeful German ghost gets me I’ll come back to haunt you,” Seungcheol deadpanned.

“Great, you can tell us how they prefer their dying ground!” Mingyu said cheerfully.

“I think Hao should go first, he’s the one suggesting people,” Jeonghan said.

Minghao rolled his eyes. “It’s literally just a little mud, you’re a bunch of wimps.” He clicked on his phone flashlight, and with a jaunty salute he climbed into the structure.

“Oh no, stairs,” he dictated in a monotone. “I am very afraid. This causes me great terror.”

“Oh shut up,” Mingyu said, close behind him.

“A hole in the wall. How freaky.” Minghao shone his light in, and then got actually interested. “Shit, there’s a door through there.” Without hesitation he gripped the edges and put his foot through the hole.

“Dude you’re gonna stumble on a corpse or something,” Soonyoung called from behind.

“If I can get to it do you really think the people who cleaned this place couldn’t? At best we’re gonna find a nice rock or some graffitti, but not a corpse.” Getting his upper body through the hole, he tested the floor, and groaned. “Aw jeez there’s like a layer of mud in here.”

“So don’t go in,” Seungkwan said.

“No definitely go in,” Jeonghan cut in.

“It’s fine there’s a rock.” One hand on the wall, he stretched out and got his foot on the rock, standing up and looking for his next foothold. The least muddy space was over by the door so he stretched out his leg and, with minimal effort, leaned into the next room, shining his light around.

“So what’s the tea?” Mingyu asked as he pulled himself through the hole. Minghao reminded himself that he wasn’t mad that the beanstalk of a man had much less trouble reaching the rock than him.

“Some graffiti.” He inspected it. “Pretty much what I was expecting. No corpses.” He heard Soonyoung sigh with relief (like that had ever been a real possibility).

Mingyu joined him in the doorframe, also shining his light around. “ _ Freeze _ ,” he read from the sharpie on the wall. “Did the police write that? To like warn off the intruders? ‘Don’t go any further you fucks’.”

“Obviously not or they would have done it in French.”

“It’s a tourist spot, it doesn’t have to be French,” Mingyu reasoned.

He had to give him that. “Fine.” He jerked his head towards the hole. “Now get your butt back through the German hole, I’m through with all this mud.” Mingyu snickered and headed back.

“There’s  _ bars _ over here, why are there bars?” Seungkwan lamented from another offshoot of the stairs.

“Bars like drinking or bars like prison?” Vernon’s voice asked.

“Prison, why would there be drinking bars?”

“The horrors of war,” Jun answered simply.

“War! What is it good for?” Chan mumbled. “Traumatizing young adults and building dependence on everything school tells us not to touch.”

“Now you’re getting it!” Jun said, oddly cheerful for clambering through a muddy German bunker near a cliffside where actual hundreds of people had died.

Minghao about fell on his back into the mud when he came back through the hole and refused to acknowledge the snickering of the others, just brushing himself off and thanking his lucky stars he’d thought better of dressing nice to tromp around Normandy.

They went to find another bunker, and it was really entertaining for Minghao to watch some of the more eager ones go sprinting through the bomb craters, vanishing into them and coming scrambling up the other side (he took a video of it, thinking he’d be able to find a loop in there somewhere). By the time they found one, it was almost time to head back to the bus, and in their haste to make a quick examination of what amounted to be a muddy room, Minghao somehow managed to put his foot directly into a crack hidden under the water and splash mud not only all over his shoes but also Mingyu’s, who looked at him with exaggerated shock and shoved him the second they were out of the shelter.

“I’m gonna make you scrub that with your toothbrush,” he threatened teasingly.

“Not on your life.”

“The ghosts are gonna kill us now you know, they marked us. Or I mean, you did anyway.” Mingyu gestured to the mud on his clothes and shoes. “They didn’t want it to be a playground; they’re gonna follow us home.”

“Dude no don’t say that!” Seungkwan complained, shoving his shoulder.

“Are you marked?” Mingyu spun him around, and for some reason Seungkwan didn’t immediately shove him away. “Uh oh, he’s marked.” Mingyu poked the streak of mud on his shirt, and  _ then _ Seungkwan shoved him away. “It’s okay, we’ll just Bloons Tower Defense it up at the hotel.”

Seokmin shrieked exaggeratedly nearby (Minghao didn’t know a better word for it than that; it was the sound without the volume). “I’m marked too!”

Jeonghan sighed deeply, clapping him on the shoulder. “It was nice knowing you, comrade Seokmin.”

“If you bring back the slav I’m  _ actually _ going to throw myself into the ocean,” Chan said.

Jeonghan sidled up to him and said something quietly with a shit eating grin. Minghao didn’t hear it, but if Chan’s immediate response of running for the cliff’s edge was anything to hint at it, he thought he had a pretty decent idea.

They had to run for it, but they made it back to the bus at the time they were meant to, even when Soonyoung paused to do some joking ‘parkour’ off the wooden beams that prevented cars from going past the parking lot.

“Why do they even need the beams?” Mingyu asked as they wiped their shoes thoroughly on the grass to get rid of the worst of the mud. “I mean wouldn’t it do crazy damage to your car to drive over all those craters, I mean who’d do that?”

“People are idiots and you can never be too careful,” Minghao said matter of factly.

Mingyu paused, watching Soonyoung take a header after his foot landed wrong on the slick grass. “Yeah,” he said. “You’re right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so uh i'd love for y'all to share your thoughts on the ghost debate bc i honestly don't know, like my friend caught a few goofy pics of me while we were on omaha beach and i'm honestly not sure if i should feel bad for being happy??? do you gotta be respectful?? would these dead teenagers mind?? whose opinion matters?? who gets to decide?????????
> 
> anyway, i actually have a couple videos from when we were screwing around in the buried bunkers (and a picture of a friend of mine crawling out of a six inch hole in one of them) and the 'marked' thing is pretty much a real quote (yes i was marked, no we didn't die)
> 
> as is the 'no good germans' thing; a friend of mine cried hearing that and it definitely did nothing to better our opinions of the illinois group (in this fic i called it the George Washington group i believe bc i would like to not let it be representative of all illinois folk. but they were from illinois. and they only got worse. stay tuned but be prepared to get p i s s e d bc you bet your ass we were)

**Author's Note:**

> pls comment i beg u


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